criswell theological review 7 -...

Criswell Theological Review 7.1 (1993) 1-14[Copyright © 1993 by Criswell College, cited with permission;

digitally prepared for use at Gordon and Criswell Colleges and elsewhere by Ted Hildebrandt]

AN INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA

DUANE A. GARRETTCanadian Southern Baptist Seminary

Cochrane, Alberta TOL OWO

The Book of Hosea is the written record of the prophecies that Ho-sea son of Beeri1, gave to the nation of Israel in the eighth century B.C.The book primarily denounces Israel for apostasy against God andwarns of a coming judgment, but it also contains promises of restora-tion (e.g., 3:4-5; 14:4-72). The book is perhaps best known for thestory of Hosea's sad marriage to Gomer. In structure, the book is di-vided into two major sections: (1) chaps. 1-3, which deal with Hosea'smarriage and lessons it provides for Israel, and (2) chaps. 4-14, a col-lection of various prophecies concerning Israel.

The Prophet and His Times

Nothing is known of Hosea the man apart from the matter of hismarriage to Gomer. The metaphors in 7:4-8 hardly prove that he wasa baker.3 All we know is that he was a prophet to the northern kingdomof Israel.4

A great deal more is known, however, about his times. He tells usthat he ministered "during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, andHezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son ofJehoash king of Israel" (1:1, NIV). Jeroboam II, who reigned from about

1 Assuming that yrixeB;-NB, means that Beeri, otherwise unknown, was Hosea's father rather than an ancestor.

2 Throughout this essay, verse numbers refer to the English versification except infootnotes where Hebrew text is cited.

3 Contrary to some interpreters. See R K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testa-ment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) 859.

4 J. L. Mays, Hosea, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969) 2, observes that Hoseawas apparently a young man, of marriageable age, when he became a prophet.

2 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

790 to 750 B.C., came to power while Israel's two enemies to the north,Syria and Assyria, were in a period of internal struggle and weakness.He was able to extend the borders of Israel while restoring the pros-perity of the nation (2 Kgs 14:25-26). This period is often described asIsrael's "Indian Summer." Amos and Hosea make clear, however, thatthe prosperity was not spread equally among the Israelites. A two-classsystem developed in which the tedium and poverty of the lowerclass contrasted strongly with the oppressiveness and glut of the upperclass. On Jeroboam's death, Israel fell into near anarchy as almost everyking was assassinated by his successor. This, combined with the rise ofan invigorated Assyria under Tiglath Pileser III (745-727 B.C.) and hissuccessors Shalmanesar V (727-722 B.C.) and Sargon II (722-705 B.C.),sealed the fate of Israel.

Internal evidence suggests that Hosea ministered during the lat-ter part of Jeroboam's reign and for some years following (Hezekiah'sreign did not begin until about 715 B.C.). This would indicate that helived to see the fall of Israel (722 B.C.) although he does not speak ofit as a past event.

One cannot easily correlate any text in Hosea with any knownevent of contemporary history. Some scholars assert that Hosea 5reflects the period of the Syro-Ephraimite war (735-733 B.C.).5 Thesuggestion is weak, however, because in Hosea Judah appears to be the aggressor (5:10; contrast the situation described in Isaiah 7). An-dersen and Freedman more plausibly suggest that this text refers toborder disputes in the reign of Uzziah of Judah.6 In general, Hosea de-scribes the volatile political situation following the death of JeroboamII in which power changed hands rapidly (e.g., 7:3-7; 8:4). It is reason-able, therefore, to suppose that most of Hosea's extant messages comefrom the decades of 755 to 735 B.C.

The Authorship and Compilation of Hosea

Few scholars today doubt that the bulk of the book comes fromthe messages of Hosea himself, but many attribute the actual commit-ment of his words to writing not to the prophet but to a group of dis-ciples.7 This outlook on the writing of the prophetic books is notfounded on solid evidence, however. Although we know from the ex-ample of Jeremiah 36 that prophets employed scribes, that text alsoinforms us that the prophets had a direct hand in the process of pro-

5 For example, H. W Wolff, Hosea, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) xxi.6 E I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Hosea, AB (New York: Doubleday, 1980) 34-35.7 Cf. Wolff, Hosea, xxix-xxxii, and Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 53.

Duane A Garrett: AN INTRODUCTION To HOSEA 3

ducing written versions of their proclamations. At any rate, there is noreason to doubt that the messages of Hosea come from the prophethimself.

A number of scholars, however, contend that the book has a fairnumber of redactional interpolations. One opinion is that the refer-ences to Judah are from two Judaic redactions of the book; the firstwas a "pro-Judah" redaction designed to distance Judah from the con-demnation pronounced against Israel (e.g., 1:7; 3:5). The second was aredaction that took the condemnatory oracles originally deliveredagainst Israel and redirected them toward Judah (e.g., 5:5; 6:11).8 Thisposition, too, stems more from the current habits of scholarship thanfrom any real evidence. It is more likely that Hosea regarded the Da-vidic king in Jerusalem the legitimate anointed of Yahweh and hopedthat Judah would reject the apostasy of Israel (e.g., 4:15), but that heknew that difficult days lay ahead for Judah as well.

A few scholars maintain that the "optimistic" oracles do not stemfrom Hosea, but this tendency to regard the prophets as incapable ofcomplex attitudes regarding the place of Israel before God is rightlyfallen out of favor. In Hosea's case, the sayings of condemnation andthe sayings of salvation are so thoroughly intertwined, and the style isso evidently uniform, that any effort to treat the positive statements assecondary should be abandoned.9

The Hebrew Text of Hosea

Second only to Job, Hosea contains probably the most difficultHebrew in the Bible. Problem texts abound. For this reason, scholarsof recent generations quickly resorted to emendation of the text or re-garded the LXX as a better representation of the Urtext than the MT.More recently, scholars have been hesitant to emend the MT or ac-cept the LXX; advances in Hebrew linguistics have allowed for newapproaches to the interpretation of enigmatic texts.10 Even so, prob-lem passages remain.

8 Cf. Wolff, Hosea, xxxi-xxxii, and W. H. Schmidt, Introduction to the Old Testa-ment (London: SCM, 1979) 204.

9 Cf. G. Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968) 422.10 Contrast the following assessments across the generations. W. R. Harper (Amos

and Hosea, ICC [New York: Charles Scribner's Son, 1905] clxxiii) writes that Hosea "isone of the most corrupt [texts] in the 0.T., the number of passages which almost defy in-terpretation being extremely large." Andersen and Freedman (Hosea, 60) write that thereare "more than enough oddities and peculiarities which can be defended, interpreted,and explained to undermine the hypothesis of extensive corruption."


The text of 5:2a, for example, is especially difficult and an enor-mous variety of interpretations and emendations have been pro-posed.11 The two most common renditions today are, "The rebels aredeep in slaughter" (NIV) and "a pit dug deep in Shittim" (NRSV [REBis similar]). The former is an attempt to translate the unemended textbut is a questionable rendition of the Hebrew.12 The second interpre-tation involves two emendations13 but fits the context well. The lasttwo lines of v 1 speak of a "snare at Mizpah" and a "net spread on Ta-bor." The proposed "pit" obviously parallels "snare" and "net" just asthe proposed "Shittim" parallels "Mizpah" and "Tabor," and "I willpunish all of them" (5:2b) could be taken to refer to Mizpah, Tabor, andShittim together.14 Both renditions are therefore defensible.15 TheLXX, by the way, is significantly different.16

Therefore, although scholars rightly hold the text of the MT inhigher regard now than they did some years ago, one cannot slavishlyassume that the MT is correct. Other examples of disputed texts whereemendation is possible or likely could easily be given.17

Another question is whether or not Hosea is written as poetry orprose. Our knowledge of classical Hebrew scansion being as limited asit is, one cannot answer this question definitively. Scholars thereforetend to take the middle way of describing Hosea as prophetic dis-course with strong affinities to poetry.18 Andersen and Freedman,working with the criterion that the definite article, the relative pro-

11 See Harper, Amos and Hosea, 267-72.12 The MT reads Uqymif;h, MyFiWe hFAHEwav;. The noun hvAHEwa occurs

only here, but itcould be taken as a feminine noun from FHw and thus mean "slaughter." The wordMyFiWe might be translated "rebels" on the basis of the root FUW found in Ps 40:5 and theword MyFise ("deeds that swerve [?]") in Ps 101:3; cf. also the root FUw "to turn aside." Theverb Uqymif;h, means, "they make deep," although it might be taken adverbially to mean"they are in deep." Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 386-88, support this translation al-though they admit that the text is "largely unintelligible in its present form."

13 One must read tHEwa, "pit," for hFAHEWa "Shittim," for MyfiWe. Wolff, Hosea,94; Mays, Hosea, 79; and D. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, WBC (Waco: Word, 1987) 88-89 supportthe emendations.

14 The change from the second person in v 1 to the third person in v 2a, however,is a problem for this emendation.

15 On balance, I prefer to emend to "pit" and "Shittim." Y. Mazor, "Hosea 5.1-3: Be-tween Compositional Rhetoric and Rhetorical Composition," JSOT 45 (1989) 119-20,shows that in the emended version of the text, 5:1c-2 has precisely the same rhetoricalstructure as 5:1ab.

16 It reads, o{ oi[ a]greu<ontej th>n qh<ran kate<phcan ("which the pursuers of the huntheld fast"). The use of hunting imagery, however, could be taken as a support for theemendation.

17Cf. C. S. Ehrlich, "The Text of Hosea 1:9," JBL 104:1 (1985) 13-19.18 Wolff, Hosea, xxiv, for example, speaks of Hosea having "elevated prose" that

can easily shift into "stricter poetic forms."


noun, and the definite object marker are more rare in poetry than inprose, have found that these particles are more frequent in chaps. 1-3than in 4-14. While the exact numbers for each passage of the bookvary,19 they support the impression many readers have of the book,namely, that chaps. 1-3 are a more prosaic introduction while chaps.4-14 constitute the more poetic main body of the prophecies.

Sometimes Hosea is taken to be a representative of a northern, Is-raelite dialect of Hebrew. This deduction is not surprising in light ofthe difficulties in the language, but we do not possess enough data toconclude that his language was typical of a northern dialect.

The Imagery and Style of Hosea

Hosea uses striking images; a typical condemnation of Israel be-gins with the simile, "Ephraim is like a dove" (7:11). He then portraysEphraim like a senseless bird fluttering between Egypt and Assyria insearch of a place of safety and straying far from God. In 6:4, he de-clares that Israel's love is like a morning mist that quickly disappearsin the heat of the day. In 9:16 Ephraim is a blighted, withered plantthat bears no good fruit, which in context apparently refers equally togood deeds and to children. Sometimes his imagery turns on a Hebrewword play.20

Wolff observes that Hosea uses a wide variety of metaphors forYahweh; some are quite surprising. In addition to the traditional hus-band (2:2), father (11:1), and physician (14:4) images, Yahweh is alsoa fowler21 (7:12), a lion or leopard (13:7), a bear (13:8), a dew (14:5), agreen tree (14:8), and even decay or infection22 (5:12).23 Hosea can usenon-traditional and even shocking language to get his point across to ahard-hearted and perhaps jaded people.

Hosea can turn his images in unexpected directions. In 7:4-7, thenation is likened to a hot oven with the meaning that Israel is hot withdebauchery and intrigue. In 7:8, however, Ephraim is like a flat cake

19 Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 60-66.20 In 8:9, the image of Ephraim as a wild ass may have its origin in a word play on

Myirap;x, and xr,P,. In 9:16, the prophet states that Ephraim (Myirap;x,) yields no fruit (yriP;). Forfurther examples, see P. A. Kruger, "Prophetic Imagery: On Metaphors and Similes inthe Book of Hosea," J Northwest Semitic Languages 14 (1988) 143-51.

21 For further discussion of this metaphor, see P. A Kruger, "The Divine Net in Hosea7:12," Eph Th L 68 (1992) 132-36.

22 The line hdAUhy; tybel; bqArAkAv; MyirAp;x,l; wfAkA ynixEva is generally rendered something like, "I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah" (NIV). Wolff (Hosea, 104)makes a good case for translating wfa as "pus." See also Stuart, Hosea, 105. Andersen andFreedman (Hosea, 412) takes it to mean "maggots." Cf. NRSV.

23 Wolff, Hosea, xxiv.


not turned over; instead of being the oven that produces the heat, Israelis dough in the oven and is sure to be burnt on the bottom. The mean-ing is evidently that Israel's associating with the gentiles is sure to re-sult in being "burnt," i.e., suffering loss.24

Hosea also brings penetrating pathos to his message through theuse of questions in the mouth of God. A particularly strong example is11:8 (NIV): "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand youover, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you likeZeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion isaroused." See also 6:4 and 8:5. Through the anthropomorphism of Godseeming to be at wit's end about his people's stubborn sinfulness, Ho-sea transforms the abstraction of divine compassion into vivid reality.25

A difficulty in interpreting Hosea is his tendency to use short,pithy declarations rather than longer prophetic discourse. Context isof limited value in interpreting some passages because sometimes onecan scarcely be sure where one text breaks off and another begins.This is not to say that it is impossible to demonstrate structure in alarger text. On the basis of an analysis of 5:1-3 and 5:15, Y. Mazor seesrhetorical unity in chap. 5;26 J. Lundbom, similarly, uses an inclusiopattern to maintain the unity of 4:4b-9a.27 Even so, large scale rhetori-cal structure is not nearly so obvious in Hosea as in some other pro-phetic books.

At times, the sayings seem almost contradictory. In 13:14-16, forexample, the text promises that God will redeem Israel and thenabruptly declares that he will have no compassion28 on the nation andthat their children will be slain and their pregnant mothers rippedopen. The prophet obviously intends for the reader to take in eachshort declaration in sequence, without transitions, so that the readermight fully experience the jolting effect of these pronouncements.Rather than distill his message down to a logically consistent whole,he confronts the reader with diverse truths presented in the most

24 Thus C. E Keil, The Minor Prophets (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.) 1:107.25 On the other hand, these questions do not have the significance that J. G. Janzen

("Metaphor and Reality in Hosea 11," Semeia 24 [1982] 7-44) ascribes to them. Janzen isoperating in the framework of process theology and sees here evidence of existential de-velopment in God.

26 Mazor, "Hosea 5.1-3," 115-26.27 J. R Lundbom, "Contentious Priests and Contentious People in Hosea 4:1-10,"

VT 36 (1986) 52-70. See also Lundbom's analysis of 4:11-14, "Poetic Structure and Pro-phetic Rhetoric in Hosea," VT 29 (1979) 300-308.

28 Although the meaning of MHano is not certain (it is a hapax legomenon), it proba-bly means "compassion" here. Cf. NIV; NRSV; and REB. Andersen and Freedman (Ho-sea, 625, 640) take it to mean "the cause of sorrow."

Duane A. Garrett: AN INTRODUCTION To HOSEA 7

stark and unqualified possible form. This forces the reader to reckonwith the full impact of his words.

Form Criticism and Hosea

A number of scholars, principally Wolff, attempt to apply formcriticism to Hosea. Wolff observes that Hosea uses, for example, the"prophetic speech," the "divine speech," the "lament," and the "exhor-tation." The "disputation"29 is crucial to his analysis; the Book of Ho-sea is at the same time Yahweh's legal indictment against Israel andthe prophet's dispute with his fellow Israelites. Wolff imagines Hoseaaddressing the audience in short "kerygmatic units" between whichthe audience may have responded with questions or objections. In thisway, Wolff accounts for the somewhat choppy, uneven style of HoseaThe analogy of the court dispute at the city gate is the backdrop forHosea. Wolff also believes that some addresses were given to smallcircles of disciples rather than to larger, open crowds (e.g., 11:1-11).30

Other scholars are less certain about form criticism as applied toHosea. Stuart, for example, states that "typical prophetic formal com-position characteristics are either so subtly combined or so artisticallymodified in Hosea's oracles that one has to consider each oracle on anad hoc basis."31 This is tantamount to saying that traditional form criti-cism is impossible in Hosea, since form criticism by definition is not adhoc but seeks to demonstrate repeated, meaningful patterns in the lit-erature (e.g., the forms observable in the Psalms). Fohrer is specificallyskeptical about Wolff's reconstructed Sitzen im Leben for his "keryg-matic units,"32 and Andersen and Freedman share that skepticism.33 In-deed, Wolff's analyses are undermined by their very complexity as heseeks to demonstrate which lines are original, which are redactional,why the oration is so irregular, and how the whole fits into its pur-ported setting.34 The best one can say is that although one may wellidentify a number of motifs in Hosea, and that an atmosphere of legaldispute is no doubt deliberately created in the book, true form criticalinvestigation has yet to yield convincing results.

29 Hebrew: byri.30 Wolf, Hosea, xxiii-xxx. Wolff believes that larger prophetic orations are marked

by the naming of the addressee, the beginning of a new theme, and the absence of acopula.

31 Stuart, Hosea, 8.32 Fohrer, Introduction, 421-22.33 Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 72, 127.34 Cf. Wolff, Hosea, 74-76, as an example of this.


The Marriage to Gomer

The story of Hosea's marriage to Gomer is at the same time boththe dominant theological metaphor and the major interpretive prob-lem of Hosea That the faithless wife is symbolic of Israel's apostasy isbeyond doubt; more questionable is the actual interpretation of chaps.1 and 3. Although there is risk of oversimplification, common interpre-tations of these texts may be set forth in the following schema.

I. Chapters 1-3 are a parable or allegory with no historical basis.At least two variants of this interpretation are proposed.A. The whole story is a vision and has no relationship to Ho- sea's actual marriage and family life.35

B. Gomer was a real but faithful wife and chap. 1 is only in- dicative of Israel's sin; in chap. 3, Hosea shows kindness to a wretched prostitute (not his wife) as a prophetic symbol of God's compassion on Israel.36

II. Chapters 1 and 3 are historical but refer to two different women. Hosea first married the prostitute Gomer, at the beginning of his prophetic ministry, to illustrate Israel's sin against God. Later in his ministry he married a second woman, also a prostitute, to illustrate God's compassion and the hope of salvation.37 Interpretation I. B. above could also be considered a variant of this interpretation.III. Chapters 1 and 3 are historical and refer to the same woman (Gomer). At least three interpretations follow this reasoning.

A. God commanded Hosea to marry an immoral woman. He did so, and she gave him one son but soon returned to her old ways and bore him two children of doubtful paternity (1:2- 9). Hosea then apparently separated from her or was abandoned by her (2:2a). She fell into poverty and disgrace, and eventually into slavery. Hosea bought her out of slavery and restored her to the family (3:1-3).38 B. Essentially the same as III. A., a variant interpretation seeks to avoid the scandal of God commanding Hosea to marry a flagrantly immoral woman by asserting that the reference

35 Thus J. Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets (Grand Rapids:Baker, n.d.) 1:43-45. Calvin misses the point when he argues that there is no reason itcould not have been a vision; the onus is on him to show that it was a vision.

36 R H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper and Brothers,1941) 567-70.

37 Fohrer, Introduction, 420-21.38 For example, J. Limburg, Hosea-Micah, Interpretation (Atlanta: John Knox,

1988) 8-15.

Duane A.Garrett: AN INTRODUCTION To HOSEA 9

to Gomer's immorality in 1:2 is proleptic, or that when hemarried her she had tendencies to immorality but had notyet actually engaged in extramarital sex, or that Hosea didnot deliberately marry a wanton woman but only retrospec-tively realized that his unhappy marriage was actually, inthe providence of God, a portrayal of God's relationship toIsrael.39

C. Chapters 1 and 3 are variant accounts of the same event;no sequence is intended.40 Hosea was commanded to marrya prostitute (1:2), he purchased Gomer from a slave market(1:3; 3:1-3), and then had one child by her before she re-turned to her immorality (1:3-9). The word "again" in 3:1is an editorial insertion.

Which of these interpretations is preferable? First of all, the viewthat the whole narrative is parabolic and non-historical must be re-jected out of hand. Hosea could not have credibly proclaimed the storyof his wayward wife as the representation of Israel's spiritual harlotryif at the same time he was living as a happily married man.41 More-over, it is implausible that he would have presented his wife in theterms of chap. 1 if in fact she was a woman of virtue.

The second major interpretation, that two separate women are inview here, is also unlikely. While it is true that the Hebrew of 3:1 isindefinite ("love a woman loved by another"42) and does not specificallysay, "your wife,” context strongly suggests that Gomer is intended. An-dersen and Freedman offer several reasons for believing that the samewoman is meant and that a sequence of events from chap. 1 to chap. 3is intended. First, the woman of 3:1 is already an adulteress, which sug-gests continuity with chap. 1. Second, the word "again" in 3:1 impliescontinuity.43 Third, in chap. 1 he was to marry an immoral woman butin 3:1 he was to love a wife already fallen. This, too, suggests develop-ment. Fourth, 3:3 does not describe the training of a new wife but thediscipline of a wayward wife. This also goes against interpretationIII. C.44

39 Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 155-70. cf. G. Archer, A Survey of Old Testa-ment Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1974) 323.

40 Cf. the discussion in C. H. Bullock, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pro-phetic Books (Chicago: Moody, 1986) 91. Bullock cites R. Gordis (HUCA 25 [1954] 9-35)as holding to this view.

41 Cf. J. A Soggin, Introduction to the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster,1976) 249.

42 Translating fEre tbEhuxE hw.Axi-bhEc<.43 This is true regardless of whether dOf is connected to j`le or rm,xyovE.44 Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 293. They also give a fifth argument related to

their interpretation of 2:6 (MT = 2:8).


Interpretation III. C. is not persuasive for the reason given aboveand also because it fails to serve as an adequate model for Hosea'stheological message. Hosea not only describes the covenant violationand punishment of Israel, he also speaks of Israel's restoration andhealing. If one treats chap. 3 simply as a doublet of chap. 1, one losesthat sequence in the analogy. Also, the language of chap. 2 favors read-ing chap. 3 as a subsequent development.

Interpretation III. A., in spite of (or perhaps because of) theoffenses it carries, is the most plausible explanation of the text. The ar-gument that Hosea was told to marry a woman described "prolepti- cally" as immoral or that she merely had promiscuous tendencies buthad not yet actually committed any immoral acts is meaningless. Apartfrom the fact that there is no credible argument that the Hebrew of1:2 means, "a woman who is going to commit fornication,"45 one mustrecognize that in Hosea's actual situation the distinction would havebeen immaterial. What could be worse than marrying a woman withfull knowledge that she would be faithless in years to come? In thatcontext, concern about what she may have done prior to the marriagequickly loses relevance. One may of course argue that Hosea only ret-rospectively saw the hand of God in the events of his unhappy mar-riage, but that flies in the face of the most natural reading of 1:2-3,that first he was told by God to marry an immoral woman and then hedid it. Finally, elements in the text imply that Gomer was in fact aprostitute.46

The marriage to Gomer was the most poignant, painful, and dra-matic "prophetic speech-act" in the Old Testament.47 Other prophets alsodid things that were strange, difficult, and even shameful in order to con- vey their message to Israel. Isaiah walked about naked and barefoot forthree years as a sign of the coming exile of Egypt and Cush (Isa 20:3-5).Ezekiel lay on his side before a representation of Jerusalem under siegeevery day for over a year and during that time ate food cooked with ma-nure (Ezekiel 4). Closer to Hosea's condition, he was also forbidden tomourn when his wife died (24:15-18). Jeremiah, by contrast, was not al-lowed to marry (Jer 16:2). In short, it was not unusual for the prophets

45 Although the phrase MyniUnz; tw,xe is unusual and its precise meaning is debated,there is little reason to regard it as proleptic or as a description of a psychological ten-dency. Indeed, Gomer may well have been a prostitute prior to the marriage, althoughwe cannot be certain.

46 Comparing ancient Near Eastern customs, P. A Kruger ("Israel, the Harlot,"J Northwest Semitic Languages 11 [1983] 107-16) observes that 2:5b refers to the feepaid a prostitute and that 2:2b may allude to ornaments worn by prostitutes.

47 Mays (Hosea, 24) who translates Hos 1:2a as, "The beginning of Yahweh's speak-ing through Hosea," comments that the "marriage was not a way for Yahweh to speak toHosea but through him" (emphasis original).


to behave in a manner contrary to custom and normal human longing inorder to give their words dramatic force.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the history of Hosea's mar-riage is that he would take Gomer back after she had been with othermen. Such a practice contradicts Deut 24:1-4. This does not refute theinterpretation of Hosea 1-3 proposed here but in a paradoxical man-ner confirms it. From the standpoint of Israel's legal tradition, it wasunthinkable that a man would take back an unfaithful wife who hadbeen separated from him and living with other men.48 But when Ho-sea bought her out of slavery and restored her to the family,49 he il-lustrated in the most profound way possible the depth of God's grace.

Finally, evangelicals should know that feminist interpreters ap-proach Hosea from a radically different direction, one in which Gomeris more victim than villain. Some accuse Hos 2:3-6 of endorsing sexualviolence toward women.50 Dijk-Hemmes develops a more abstract butmore radical interpretation. She argues that Hosea gives us distortedfragments of Gomer's love poetry-love songs that were analogous tothe woman's parts in Song of Songs. In this reconstruction, these lovesongs extolled the erotic and nurturing power of the woman/goddess,but Hosea misconstrued them in order to crush the religion of themother-goddess and establish patriarchal, oppressive religion.51

48 Although Hosea may not have been in technical violation of Deut 24:1-4 since,as far as we can tell from the text, he did not give her a written certificate of divorce.D. B. Wyrtzen ("The Theological Center of Hosea," BSac 141 [1984] 320-21) on the otherhand, argues that 2:2 represents an actual divorce rather than separation. Also, the act ofpublicly stripping a woman taken in adultery was an outraged husband's ritual of di-vorce elsewhere in the ancient Near East; cf. Kruger, "Israel, the Harlot," 111-12.

49The precise significance of j`yilAxe ynixE-Mgav; wyxil; yyih;ti xlov; ("and you shall not be fora man but indeed I [shall be] to you") in 3:3 is widely debated. It would appear that aperiod of isolation for Gomer is in view after which Hosea perhaps resumed marital re-lations with her. Cf. Wolff, Hosea, 61-62; Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 301-5. It is ofcourse possible that he did not resume normal sexual relations with her.

50 Cf. R J. Weems, "Gomer: Victim of Violence or Victim of Metaphor?" Semeia 47(1989) 87-104, and T D. Setel, "Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery inHosea," in L. Russell, Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster,1985) 86-95. It is not sufficient to respond to this allegation by saying that Hosea 2 is"only a metaphor" and therefore does not condone abuse of women. A meaningful evan-gelical interpretation of Hosea 2 must come in the context of a fully developed theologyof family life.

51 E van Dijk-Hemmes, "The Imagination of Power and the Power of Imagination:An Intertextual Analysis of Two Biblical Love Songs," JSOT 44 (1989) 75-88. Apart fromthe fact that the representation of Gomer singing love-songs analogous to Song of Songsis pure hypothesis, one should note that Song of Songs does not promote goddess religion(see my volume on Song of Songs in the New American Commentary) and that Hosea isnot so much in a struggle against the goddess as he is in a contest against Baal, the meta-phorical rival of Yahweh (2:16-17). Cf. Mays, Hosea, 11-12.


The Theology of Hosea

Readers understandably interpret Hosea through the metaphor ofthe unfaithful wife as a representative of Israel. Childs explains themessage behind the marriage to Gomer as a metaphor that not onlyaddresses Hosea's generation of wayward Israelites but reaches backto describe the entire history of the nation (including Judah).52 Inshort, the story of his marriage retells the whole sad experience of thecovenant people. Ezekiel draws upon the marriage image and retells itin Ezekiel 16 with Jerusalem playing the part of the unfaithful wife.The importance of "faithfulness" in Hosea, as well as the metaphor ofthe "lawsuit; naturally merge into the marriage metaphor.53 Israelshould have shown fidelity to the covenant just as a wife should showfidelity to her marriage vows, and Israel now faces the indictment ofGod just as an adulteress faces the charges brought by her husband.54

It would be incorrect, however, to assume that this is the whole ofHosea's message. In chaps. 4-14, although the analogy of the waywardwife never disappears entirely, Hosea does not dwell upon it but ratheruses other metaphors for Israel. In 11:1, for example, Israel is not awife but a son. In 5:13-6:3, the image of Israel and Judah as peoplesuffering from disease and wounds controls the text (cf. Isa 1 :5-6). Itwould be a mistake to expound the whole of Hosea as if the picture ofthe fallen wife dominated every passage, for clearly it does not.

Hosea's message contains, as one would expect, a great deal ofcondemnation. He particularly abhors the degenerate priesthood of Is-rael (e.g., 4:4-9). Indeed, he regards them as little better than a gang ofthugs (6:9). He also has little respect for Israel's kings and in 8:4 ap-pears to allude to the rapid succession of kings after Jeroboam II. Themention of only Jeroboam II in the title (1:1) may in fact imply thatHosea considered him to be the last king of Israel with any shred oflegitimacy.

At the same time, no other biblical text so vividly portrays the per-sonal love of God. The vivid picture of God as a loving parent remem-bering when he taught his now deviant child to walk (11:3) isunsurpassed in tenderness and pathos.

52 B. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: For-tress, 1979) 381.

53 Various forms of the root dsh ("faithfulness") occur in (Hebrew text) 2:21; 4:1;6:4, 6; 10:12; 12:17. Various forms of the root byri ("lawsuit" or "contention") occur in 2:4;4:1, 4; 12:3. 4:1 is especially significant in that it has both roots and is to some degreeprogrammatic for the whole of 4:1-14:9.

54 This metaphor does not occur elsewhere in the ancient Near East for the rela-tionship between a god and his followers according to Kruger ("Israel, the Harlot," 107).

Duane A Garrett: AN INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 13

Hosea makes allusions to, and builds his theology upon, the Torah.U. Cassuto points to many examples of parallels between Hosea andthe Pentateuch, and conclusively shows that Hosea was dependent onthe Law rather than the other way around.55 A number of scholars rec-ognize Hos 12:1-6, where the prophet alludes to Genesis 25 and 32, asan example of "inner" biblical exegesis that can serve as a guide in theinterpretation and application of Scripture.56 Stuart demonstrates thatnot only Hosea but other prophets also looked back to the "curses andblessings" of the covenant as a primary source for their messages.57

Also, when God curses the land and its inhabitants in Hos 4:3, he doesso in a sequence that is the reverse of the creation narrative of Genesis1 and thus nullifies the blessings of creation.58 In short, Hosea showsus that sound theology is based upon the Canon.

A remarkable feature of Hosea is that it ends with a wisdom sayingcomparable to Prov 1:1; 30:4-6 and Eccl 12:13-14: "Who is wise? Hewill realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them.The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the re-bellious stumble in them" (Hos 14:9, NIV). In one sense this is not sur-prising because Hosea's book is characterized by the pithy, aphoristicstatements common in wisdom. It is remarkable, however, for aprophet to end with so obvious a wisdom statement. Scholars generallyregard the verse as redactional, but that conclusion is unnecessary.59

The self-conscious admission that the text is difficult to understandrefers to the paradoxical way in which it presents its truths. Gross

55 "The Prophet Hosea and the Books of the Pentateuch,” reprinted in U. Cassuto, Biblical and Oriental Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973) 1:79-100. For further com-ment, see D. A Garrett, Rethinking Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991) 54-55. Con-trast J. Day, "Pre-Deuteronomic Allusions to the Covenant in Hosea and Psalm 78; VT36 (1986) 1-12.

56 Not surprisingly, interpretations differ. W. J. Kaiser, Jr. ("Inner Biblical Exegesisas a Model for Bridging the 'Then' and 'Now' Gap: Hos 12:1-6,” JETS 28 [1985] 33-46)develops an evangelical model. S. L. McKenzie ("The Jacob Tradition in Hosea 12:4-5;VT 36 [1983] 311-22) operates in the documentary hypothesis framework but arguesthat Hosea is giving a parody of a blessing that was pronounced at Bethel in order tocondemn the cult at the shrine and equate the people with the deceitfulness of JacobL. M. Eslinger ("Hosea 12:5a and Genesis 32:29: A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis;JSOT 18 [1980] 91-99) argues that the Hosea text is based on the Genesis text but hasradically reinterpreted it.

57 Stuart, Hosea, xxxi-xlii; 7-8; passim.58 The sequence in Hosea is people, beasts, birds, and fish; contrast Gen 1:20-27. It

contains the verb Jsx, which is important in other creation reversal narratives (cf. Zeph1:2-3 and Jer 8:13). See M. Deroche, "The Reversal of Creation in Hosea," VT 31 (1981)400-409.

59 Wolff (Hosea, 239) who regards the verse as redactional, nevertheless observesthat it contains the typical Hosean word "stumble" (lwk) used here and in 4:5; 5:5; 14:2.


infidelity leads to a divorce that, contrary to Law and custom, is re-solved in reconciliation. Terrible judgment and unfailing compassion,as well as promises of absolute destruction and of healing restoration,are set side-by-side with no guide to how all of this is to work itself out.Convoluted as it all may seem, the final verse assures the reader that Yahweh's ways are in fact straight and urges that the true path to un-derstanding and life is through submission and obedience.

This material is cited with gracious permission from: The Criswell College 4010 Gaston Ave.

Dallas, TX 75246www.criswell.edu

Please report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at: [email protected]

criswell theological review 7 -...

Documents